Stephen Colbert is Awesome...and So Can You!

Stephen Colbert is awesome. For those of you unsure of who I’m talking about, Colbert is the host of The Colbert Report, a satirical news program that airs on Comedy Central. Colbert didn’t always have his own TV show – he started out as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. After leaving this program, he and his colleagues reportedly pitched the idea for a similar show to executives at Comedy Central with a single phrase: “our version of The O’Reilly Factor with Stephen Colbert.” And would it be the same without Stephen Colbert? No! The Stewart Report just wouldn’t fly. Nonetheless, despite both having satirical news shows of the same ilk, according to Variety, Colbert and Stewart remain close friends – so close that Colbert reports (see what I did there?) that Stewart has the honor of being “the emergency contact on my gym membership.”

g Photo courtesy of mediabistro.com

Since then, The Colbert Report has become an Emmy winner that skillfully blends humor, news, and razor-sharp political commentary. It is a unique program that continually manages to push boundaries. Still, Colbert isn’t content with disrupting the system on TV, “whether he’s nuking the vibe at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner or pushing the limits of what you can do with a Super PAC” – or planning to run for president. Some might say that he is merely extending the humor of his show by clowning around in public, but I’m of the opinion that there’s much more to his antics. What better way to instigate real change than to make a point with humor, which is often the most effective way to grab attention? On the surface, Colbert’s stunts may seem purely for jokes, but I think that it’s extremely possible that he is genuinely attempting to promote a shift in social and cultural thinking about issues that have become so commonplace as to be blindly accepted. In recent years, The Colbert Report has seen continual growth in ratings among adults ranging from 18 to 34. Interestingly enough, this is often cited as the generation that has stopped caring about others,. Therefore, witnessing Colbert’s firm stance on certain issues and subsequent attempts do something about what he believes may be a good influence, whether or not they agree completely with his opinions.

Nation, if you have never seen The Colbert Report, I highly encourage you to watch it from Monday to Thursday on Comedy Central. You owe it to yourself! It contains truthiness (Merriam-Webster’s 2006 Word of the Year) that you simply have to see to believe.

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Amy is a third-year student at the University of Denver majoring in Communication Studies, with concentrations in organizational and intercultural communication, as well as minoring in business and international studies. She is a Colorado native, avid reader, coffee drinker, lover of all things active, and now, thanks to Uloop, a writer.